John or Paul?

 

Which one are you, John or Paul?

As an artist, which are you?

The raw or the cooked? 

     

 I mean, there are those artists who want to dig into themselves, confess themselves, use themselves as their source material. And then there are artists who hide behind their art, who use their art to please, to put on a hundred different masks. I think it's true no matter what medium you work in: writing, acting, painting, etc. Of course art by it's very nature is a kind of hiding; even if it is a revelation, it's always at one remove. One can always deny it if questioned by Pilate. 

Yet it is also an invitation to follow the clues, no matter how tortuous or obscure, to the soul. So there's a dialectic involved.I adore Lennon, but I'm definitely a McCartney, hiding behind the mask of Dr. John Watson. (Not that an artist can't occasionally break the mold: McCartney's Yesterday or Lennon's For the Benefit of Mr. Kite.

Reflections on Reflections

    There comes a time in every draft of a novel when things start to click together, to reflect each other. For instance, did you know that King Tut photographer Harry Burton preferred sunlight for his pictures? Which meant he had to use a complicated setup of mirrors and reflectors to bring the sun into the tomb. (I didn't know this, and had to rewrite that whole section.)

     

But then I realized that must have been the exact method used by Geoffrey Hodson, 50 pages earlier, to create the illusion of dancing fairies! 

Research always shows you the way.

Memorabilia

 

I'm not really one for memorabilia, but I figure I owe these guys something. So I got this.

Benedict Cumberbatch

I like Benedict Cumberbatch. I like Sherlock. How could I not? But the truth is, I have no news about either subject. I have no special insights into either phenomenon. I have no whimsical tales to relate. I'm simply pandering, hoping that a picture of this dashing young man will garner my blog more followers. Hey, it's worth a try.

Thanks, Benny.